Word: franco-prussian
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...Gaulle appointed himself guardian of that greatness at an early age. His father had fought in the Franco-Prussian War, and Charles grew up in Lille and Paris during the period of Prussian pre-eminence following France's loss. Determined to help restore la gloire, he won admission to the prestigious St.-Cyr military academy, where he stood out for his arrogance and scholarship as well as for his height (6 ft. 5 in.). As an officer in the late 1920s, he insisted on wearing his beret tilted unconventionally to the right, and championed the superiority of tanks...
...sent a report of what took place to Premier Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck edited this account to make the King appear insulting toward the diplomat and then released his version to the press. As he had hoped, the outraged French attacked Germany, enabling Bismarck to embark on the Franco-Prussian War, which he decisively won. Governmental forgery goes on, in many guises and places. The practices of the Soviet Union's KGB have made the term disinformation familiar to millions. During the late 1960s, the FBI'S attempts to sow dissent among radical and antiwar groups...
Versailles suffered other indignities. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, the fabled Hall of Mirrors was turned into an infirmary by the invaders; the French avenged the German insult in 1919, when the Allied leaders gathered in the same hall to sign the treaty ending World War I. But by then the palace had been gutted, and the gardens were shabby and overgrown. Visiting the grounds in 1923, John D. Rockefeller Jr. was appalled at the neglect and donated $100,000 for restoration, which included a new roof for the Hall of Mirrors...
...were virulent anti-Semites, occasionally to the point of black comedy. Lamenting, as he often did, the decline of morality and religion, Wagner concluded, "The old Jewish God always ruins the whole thing." Roman Catholics stood little higher in their estimation and they loathed the French too. During the Franco-Prussian War, they summed things up by saying that France "has been undermined by the spirit of the Jesuits...
Said the inconsolable chief curator of the Versailles Museum, Gerald Van der Kemp: "There has never been an attack on Versailles since the reign of Louis XIV." The palace, which is located about twelve miles west of Paris, had remained unscathed during the Franco-Prussian conflict of 1870, as well as during the first and second World Wars. Responsibility for the bombing was claimed by three extremist groups: Unemployment International, the Revolutionary Worker Group and a military wing of the Breton Liberation Front. French authorities took the Breton claim seriously. A telephone tip turned up a letter from the Breton...